Death comes to me again, a girl

Death comes to me again, a girl

in a cotton slip, barefoot, giggling.

It’s not so terrible she tells me,

not like you think, all darkness

and silence. There are windchimes

and the smell of lemons, some days

it rains, but more often the air is dry

and sweet. I sit beneath the staircase

built from hair and bone and listen

to the voices of the living. I like it,

she says, shaking the dust from her hair,

especially when they fight, and when they sing.